Silicone & Rubber Parts Production With 3D Printing
Producing soft or flexible parts in small batches can often be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. To overcome these limitations, many engineers and manufacturers are now turning to 3D printing to create rapid molds for casting silicone, or even to directly fabricate flexible components. Desktop 3D printers provide key advantages like CAD-based design freedom, high precision, fast iteration cycles, and minimal lead times.
Direct Silicone 3D Printing
Silicone 40A Resin is the first accessible, 100% silicone material enabled by Formlabs’ proprietary Pure Silicone Technology™. Skip the hassles of mold making and laborious casting—print authentic silicone parts directly in-house in just hours.
Craft soft, flexible, and resilient components with 230% elongation at break and 12 kN/m tear strength—ideal for applications subject to repeated stretching, bending, and compression.
Rapid Tooling for Low-Volume Silicone & Rubber Parts
Combine 3D-printed rapid tooling with traditional manufacturing to make limited runs of silicone and rubber components using a flexible, scalable, and cost-savvy workflow. 3D-printed molds or patterns can support:
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Injection molding
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Compression molding
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Casting
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Overmolding and insert molding
Cut Tool-Making to 24 hours
Stop waiting weeks for tools to arrive from a service provider or for your CNC machine to free up. With in-house 3D printing, you can create custom jigs and fixtures within a day, run tests, tweak your design, and print again.
Step 1
Design
Model your mold in CAD. Depending on geometry, choose a compression mold, injection-filled mold, overmold, or eggshell mold.
Step 2
3D Print
Select the right resin from the materials library and print the mold on a Formlabs SLA printer.
Step 3
Fill the Mold
Prepare the tool with protective coatings and release, then mix your silicone and fill the mold.
Step 4
Post-Process
Demold, trim, and finish the silicone part as needed. For full instructions, see the white paper.
3D Print Using Materials With Silicone-Like Behavior
Reduce outsourcing and hand-molding of silicone, urethane, and rubber parts. Formlabs printers and materials offer several routes to create complex, short-run flexible and elastic prototypes—and even end-use parts—in house, in hours.
Elastic 50A Resin
Soft Flexible Prototypes
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Wearables (e.g., straps)
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Compressible buttons
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Stretchable housings and covers
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Soft-tissue anatomy models
Flexible 80A Resin
Hard Flexible Prototypes
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Handles, grips, and overmolds
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Cushioning, damping, shock absorption
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Seals, gaskets, and masks
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Cartilage, tendon, and ligament anatomy
Rebound Resin
Elastic Production Parts
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Production components
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Springy, resilient lattices
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Ergonomic handles and grips
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Complex gaskets and seals
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Why Transition to Digital?
Reduced Costs
Skip the large initial investment in tooling and minimize labor expenses.
Quick Turnaround
Create high-precision tools or parts in under 24 hours.
Adaptable Production
Enable just-in-time manufacturing to boost agility and reduce the need for stockpiling inventory.
Creative Design Freedom
Easily design complex, organic geometries, consolidate multi-part assemblies, and allow full customization.
High Accuracy & Repeatability
Ensure consistent output and precision over time—outperforming many manual processes.
Ergonomic and Lightweight
Enhance usability and machine longevity with lightweight, user-friendly plastic tools.